


Empresses

by Serenade



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Gen, Moving Out, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 03:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/pseuds/Serenade
Summary: Csoru Drazharan was used to getting what she wanted.





	Empresses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bigsunglasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsunglasses/gifts).



Csoru Drazharan was used to getting what she wanted. For five glorious years, she had been empress of the Elflands. Her husband had given her everything she asked for: jewels, gowns, furs, even a pair of magnificent peacocks from the Versheleen Islands.

She had become an empress at sixteen, achieving the pinnacle of all ambition.

She had become a widow at twenty-one.

#

Her ladies knew to stay out of her way when she was in a temper. It was not ladylike to throw things. Csoru did it anyway. She screamed into mirrors and hurled cushions onto the floor, panting with rage.

The Dower House. Of all places. The Dower House.

The emperor had phrased it as a suggestion. _Perhaps you would be more comfortable there._ But she knew by now that his polite words were backed by pigheaded resolve. He had said, _We did not wish to disturb you during your mourning year. But now…_

But now, his mourning year was over too. And he was ready to wed his betrothed. Who would take over her rank and her rooms.

Csoru could guess what expression flashed across her face, because both his nohecharei tensed. But one could not fly at the emperor in fury, so she stormed from the room. Back to her chambers.

They were the finest in the Untheileneise Court, outside of the emperor's own Alcethmeret. They welcomed the morning sun, but were shaded from the afternoon heat. Arched windows illuminated airy rooms, whose walls were papered in gilt and bronze lotuses. Every surface overflowed with the trinkets and baubles she had acquired over the years. Csoru had held many a salon here with her intimates, basking in the warmth of their regard. She had watched countless sunsets from the grand balcony, which overlooked a garden of exotic flowers and a pond with nine colours of carp.

Now she was being forcibly displaced. Cast from her own home. It was outrageous. It was unfair. And, if she allowed herself to admit, more than a little terrifying.

#

No matter how discreet one was, it was hard to keep secrets in a place with so many eyes and ears. There had been servants and workmen inspecting the Dower House, making it fit for habitation. No one had lived there for decades, not since Varenechibel's mother had passed, long before Csoru had come to court. It was a place for relics, living and otherwise.

And so the rumours began. They spread swiftly around the court, to her mortification. The juiciest gossip always did. Csoru normally delighted in sharing it, amused or scandalised as appropriate. Like skipping stones across a pond, to see how far the ripples went. Even when they talked about her, she knew it was because she made the biggest waves.

But now as she walked the corridors, certain of her confidantes pretended not to see her, talking to each other in fevered whispers. Fair weather friends, she thought savagely. They would find little favour with Csethiro, who had no patience for such games.

She turned away, down the next corridor, so swiftly she collided with someone coming the other way. "Watch your step!"

"Do you always blame others for your own fault?" Arbelan Drazharan said. Tall and impassive and unimpressed.

She always made Csoru intensely uncomfortable. Varenechibel's other wives were conveniently dead. But Arbelan was a living reminder that Csoru was not the only consort he had chosen. Empresses could be replaced. As Csoru herself soon would be.

Csoru could not understand why the emperor had invited Arbelan back to the capital. It was disgraceful the way she paraded around the court, as though she still belonged there. And yet. Everyone knew the emperor dined with Arbelan weekly, even though he had no obligation to show her any favour. It filled Csoru with bewildered resentment, even though she herself would be loath to spend any more time with the emperor than necessary. He would be a terrible dining companion, ignorant and uncouth. Why on earth would she seek his company? It still stung that he saw no need to seek hers.

"We cannot be blamed for the distress we suffer," Csoru bit out. "We are being cruelly relegated from our rightful home--"

"You think this is relegation?" Arbelan said, with a bark of laughter. Csoru belatedly remembered where Arbelan had lived for thirty years: the manor at Cethoree, out of favour and out of sight, shut away with no possibility of return. "Stop playing the martyr. Here you are in the heart of Cetho. You have the world at your feet."

"As if the emperor will ever allow us any power," Csoru said bitterly.

"The emperor holds all of us in his power. Unless you plan to depose him. Like Sheveän."

Csoru blanched. "We are no traitor."

"So what are you?"

Csoru gathered her breath for a scathing retort, only to find all words dried up. She could not say empress. She would not say dowager. She literally had nothing else come to her mind.

Arbelan waited, but when it became clear no response was forthcoming, she shook her head, something like pity in her eyes. "Tell us when you find out."

#

Csoru went to see the Dower House, drawn by a perverse desire to peel the skin away from the wound. It was set apart from the rest of the Untheileneise Court, a formidable turreted structure in the midst of recently trimmed lawns. The servants were alarmed by her arrival, caught in the middle of vigorous cleaning.

"Continue thy work," she said, magnanimously. "We merely observe."

Shutters had been thrown open, and dustcovers lifted off furniture. Pale wintry light filtered through thick panes of glass. Csoru walked through the house, picking up and putting down dusty ornaments, and looking at faded portraits of a woman in a stiff black dress and an even stiffer smile.

Csoru had always known her purpose. Not like the others. Vedero, playing at being a scholar. Csethiro, playing at being a swordmaster. Csoru knew her destiny was marriage. She had to make a brilliant match. And so she had. But the widow of one emperor could never marry another emperor. She was part of the imperial family now.

Csoru knew why the emperor had chosen to do as he did. He foresaw a court divided, courtiers currying favour with empresses old and new. Perhaps even factions forming. So the dowager empress was encouraged to retire from the court, ceding her position to her successor. Even if her life had unfolded as it should, her path would eventually have led Csoru here. Was this truly meant to be the capstone to her achievements?

She was seized with a vast longing for something she did not even know how to name.

#

Csoru sat on a carven bench in the courtyard garden, tossing bread to the peacocks. They were pretty but temperamental, just as likely to bite the hand that fed them.

The garden flowered in all seasons, even winter bringing delicate snowbells poking through the frozen ground. It irked Csoru. The whole earth should be sunk in despair with her.

Arbelan found her there in the garden. She came unannounced, and Csoru realised she must have come through the hidden path in the hedge maze.

"What are you doing here?" Csoru said.

"We are not unfamiliar with the layout of this garden."

This had been her garden once too, Csoru realised with chagrin. These had been her rooms.

Grudgingly, she shifted a few inches along the bench. Arbelan looked at her a moment, then sat down. They watched the peacocks clustered around their feet, eager to swallow up every morsel of bread.

"Did you hate him," Csoru said, "when he sent you away?"

Arbelan gave her a look. "What do you think?"

"How did you stand it?" Csoru wanted to sound worldly and cynical. But her voice went high and plaintive on the last words.

Arbelan weighed her question for several long moments, studying her with keen eyes. "Not well. We had many dark days. Do you know, there is no word for a woman who is no longer a wife, but is not yet a widow?" She paused. "But hate grows heavy. One day, we grew tired of hating."

Csoru could not imagine forgiving such a wrong, she who remembered every petty slight. And yet, she thought she understood. There were times when the fires of her rage burned everything to ash, and there was nothing left to burn except herself. She did not want to be consumed by that rage. Arbelan had already survived her own inferno. Csoru looked at her with a new respect.

They sat in silence, the first and last wives of Varenechibel IV.

"What are you going to do now?" Csoru said.

"We have no idea," Arbelan said, and she sounded pleased rather than daunted. "We could walk the gardens every day. We could make new gardens. We could explore every street and befriend every person in the city. We could board an airship and fly as far as it can take us. We could do anything."

"We could do anything," Csoru repeated, but she used the plural form.

Csoru Drazharan was used to getting what she wanted. But there were only certain things she had been allowed to want. There were islands where peacocks roamed wild like cats. She wondered what else she could discover, beyond the walls of her gilded chambers. She wondered, wildly, if Arbelan would care to dine with her at the Dower House. Or even fly with her across the Elflands.


End file.
